When the regulations underwent a major change at the start of the 2022 season, the teams encountered a number of unexpected issues when designing their cars.
One issue that was mostly overlooked by both the FIA and the teams was porpoising, a violent bouncing that is caused by the aerodynamics surrounding the new cars.
This is an issues which significantly hindered Mercedes, as the Silver Arrows had to put any upgrades to the W13 on hold for the first half of the season as they worked to solve this bouncing problem.
In the first day on 2023’s pre-season testing in Bahrain, the bouncing looks to be an issue of the past for many teams, with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff confirming after the first sessions that the W14 was not porpoising.
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Ferrari do not appear to have been as lucky however, as the SF-23 was spotted bouncing on multiple occasions, something which will greatly concern Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
New team principal Fred Vasseur is not concerned about the bouncing however, claiming that it is more down to the condition of the track rather than the SF-23.
“It’s not at all like it was one year ago when it bounced like a kangaroo,” he said.
“We have some parts of the track that are a bit more bumpy than before, especially turn 1. It’s a different issue.”
The SF-23 featured a number of interesting parts on Thursday, with unorthodox air channels and front wing winglets drawing the attention of many viewers.
Vasseur has eased fan’s concerns about these parts, telling the media that Ferrari are in constant contact with the FIA are not breaking any rules with their new innovations.
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“For now the most important thing is to gain mileage and so far everything is going according to plan,” he began.
“You probably know that all the teams are constantly in contact with the FIA. We are exactly the same, so we don’t have any problems at all.”
The SF-23 proved to be very reliable during the first day of testing and while it was not able to match the speed of Max Verstappen in the RB19, both Leclerc and Sainz set impressive lap times over the course of the day.